It’s time small business owners stopped concentrating on negative statistics indicating that most businesses don’t celebrate their fifth birthday. Instead, they should ask themselves this critical question: What should we do to achieve business success?
Business planning is the ultimate way of achieving
business success. Tim Berry’s recent survey indicates that a well written
business plan doubles the chances of a business success.
Finances are the foundation of
business growth.
However, not all businesses have adequate cash to support sustainable growth. Therefore,
they turn to lenders and potential investors who demand actionable business
plans before pledging their financial support.
Unfortunately,
most business owners face difficulties in preparing actionable business plans. Doing
market and industry analysis, forecasting business performance over a period of
3-5 years, outlining marketing strategies, preparing product (s) description,
and preparing accurate financial projections are some of the difficulties most
business owners undergo during business planning.
Developers
have come up with business plan apps to help business owners write
good business plans worth presenting to lenders and potential investors. Here
are 3 top apps that can help business owners create business plans easily…
1.
Business Plan Premier
Lenders and potential investors are mostly interested in financial
statements of the business. In his guest post, Rob Severson warns business owners
to never tell a banker “I want to
explain a few things before giving you my financial statements”.
Business plan premier , an iPad-based business plan app,
enables business owners come up with accurate balance sheet and income statements
based on the data they provide. What Rob puts across is that financial
statements should “speak for themselves”.
This App connects you to over 3000
potential investors.
It enables you craft vision and mission statements, develop a marketing plan,
carry out SWOT analysis, identify target market, prepare product description,
estimate start-up expenses and create executive summary.
It allows you to export the complete business plan as a Microsoft Word
Document that can easily be edited, printed, uploaded to Dropbox or emailed to
colleagues.
2.
Enloop
Lenders and potential investors use financial ratios, for instance debt
coverage and quick ratios, to evaluate business viability.
Enloop, a web-based app, gives you a ratio analysis most important to
lenders.
Based on the data fed, it generates Sales, Profit and Loss, Cash Flow and
Balance Sheet forecasts. It generates accurate graphs and charts that match
industry-standard reporting criteria used by bankers, investors and CPAs. It is
equipped with EPS™ Score that
ensures you don’t get unrealistic forecasts which lead to business failure. It
comes with a Free Edition and more advanced editions ranging from $9.95 to
$39.95.
3.
Stratpad
Stratpad is a must have for business owners writing
a business plan for the first time. It
includes a 58-page strategy and business planning tutorial. It is packed with free on-demand training
videos, free live email support, a summary business plan, a project plan report
and 3 samples strategic business plans.
It comes with a free Edition and more advanced editions ranging from
$9.99 to $54.99. The more advanced editions allow you to export financial
information to spreadsheets, attach color logo to reports, and email business
plan file to team members and clients.
There is no
reason why you should run a business without a business plan. Take advantage of
these Business Plan Apps to “up” your business game!
Dedicated to
your business success, Samuel Githinji.
